


The Minutes of This Fine Moment

by pyrrhical (anoyo)



Category: The Vampire Diaries & Related Fandoms
Genre: Canon: Season 2, F/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Soulmate AU, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Stefan POV - Freeform, caroline POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-01 01:10:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15131780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anoyo/pseuds/pyrrhical
Summary: Caroline added her name to the State Soulmate Registry when she was fifteen, just like everyone else. She knew she had to wait until she was eighteen for the first words her soulmate would say to her to ink themselves across her arm, but that was fine -- she was registered. It never occurred to her to think she'd never turn eighteen.





	The Minutes of This Fine Moment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [annannette (fanetjuh)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanetjuh/gifts).



> Recip,
> 
> I really hope you enjoy this! I tried to take your prompts and tags and make something out of them, and I hope that I succeeded. 
> 
> To all,
> 
> I'm choosing not to use the Major Character Death tag, since this fic goes post-canon, and there are a lot of deaths at that point. No one dies who isn't supposed to die, I promise. 
> 
> Title is from "In a Special Way" by Wendell A Brown.
> 
> Thanks go to my ever-amazing betas, Diana & Sky. Diana made me rewrite the ending of this, so she should really get all the credit for any places where it actually makes sense!

For Bonnie’s fifteenth birthday, Caroline and Elena took her to Richmond to visit the State Registration Facility. They had agreed to wait, together, to pre-register. Fifteen was the magic number.

It was a romantic teenager’s dream come true. Hundreds of pictures decorated the walls, both individually and in smiling collages, depicting people who had found their soulmates through registration. They all looked almost incandescently happy, bright toothpaste commercial teeth shining in every shot. 

Comfortable couches filled the space, each with clipboards and registration forms near them. Caroline, Bonnie, and Elena crammed themselves together on one couch to fill out their forms, each commenting on the others’ forms. Their laughter was bright, and if they had looked up, they would have seen other registrants smiling at them in silent approval.

They each went to different registration cubicles and finished their registrations almost in sync, running back to the couch to greet one another with jaw-breaking smiles, clasped hands, and the occasional, “Oh my god!” It took Mrs. Gilbert offering a frozen yogurt stop to get them out of the room and back in the car.

They spent their time on the patio of a suburban Pinkberry guessing the names and natures of their soulmates. It might have been February, but it was also Virginia: the sun was shining bright and warm, and Taylor Swift was singing about Romeo and Juliet in the background.

“Brilliant, of course, but weird enough to understand you,” Caroline said, bumping Bonnie with her shoulder. “Not to mention handsome,” she tagged on at the same time as Elena said, “Not to mention he’ll look great in a suit.” Bonnie laughed as Caroline and Elena smiled at one another.

Bonnie said, her eyes gleaming as she pointed her spoon at Elena, “He’ll be kind, doting, and have the prettiest blue eyes,” and Caroline added, “Probably looks great in a football jersey, too,” sparking laughter. 

“Smoking hot,” said Elena, smiling wickedly, “and definitely rich,” before Caroline jumped in with, “He’ll be charming, so my mom loves him, but a little bit dirty, too,” trailing off into giggles and side-eyed looks at Elena’s laughing mother.

Once they’d all piled back into the car, the conversation switched to celebrities who would definitely turn out to be their soulmates.

“Johnny Depp.”

“Definitely Joseph Gordon-Levitt!”

“Oooh, George Clooney -- oh, shut up, he’s not that old!”

What they never brought up was what would happen if one of them never turned eighteen at all.

**

When Stefan found her, Caroline was sitting alone, feet tucked up underneath her, on the small bench out back. He waved, then watched her quickly wipe underneath her eyes, careful of her liner and mascara. “Hey,” he said. She shifted a little to face him as he sat down on the bench, crossing his hands in his lap.

“Hey,” she said. Her voice was a little watery, but not a whisper, and she gave him a small smile.

“Birthday blues?” he asked. Stefan swung one leg up to cross his ankle at his knee and put his arm out along the back of the bench, not touching Caroline, but close enough to make a show at comfort.

Caroline swept hair over her shoulder, then smiled again and said, “Yeah.”

“Your words didn’t show up,” Stefan said, a statement rather than a question.

Caroline nodded. She wrapped clasped fingers around her knees, not leaning forward, but closing her posture off further all the same.

“Can I tell you a secret?” he asked. 

“Sure,” Caroline said. The little smile was still on her face, but it met her eyes for the first time since he’d arrived. “I love a good secret.”

Stefan smiled. “I know,” he said, putting humor into his voice. He paused a moment before he continued, letting the comfortable silence relax Caroline’s shoulders and arms. Finally, he said, “I don’t have words, either.”

He rotated his bare wrists while he watched Caroline’s eyebrows go up. When he dropped his arms again, he cupped his hands around his crossed leg, met Caroline’s eyes, and shrugged.

“Apparently, you have to be alive to turn eighteen,” he said. “I’ve spoken to other vampires about it, and it’s not uncommon. Whatever controls the words -- magic, science, tiny tattooing fairies --” Caroline laughed softly, “-- whatever, it doesn’t happen to vampires.”

“That sucks,” Caroline said. Her voice was tight, but Stefan could see her relax further into the bench, more tension leaving her body. “That really, really sucks.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I was ten when Damon got his. He woke me up in the middle of the night to show me.” Stefan smiled. “I always thought that when I got mine, it would be the same.”

“But you were turned first,” Caroline said. “Like me.”

“About a month before my eighteenth birthday,” Stefan agreed.

Caroline smiled. “Can I ask?” she said.

“What?” Stefan quirked his lips to the side as his eyebrows pulled together.

“What are Damon’s words?” Her eyes were lively in a way they hadn’t been all day and Stefan laughed.

“Word, actually,” Stefan said. “He just has a neat ‘No’ below his left wrist.” His smile grew when Caroline laughed.

“Of course he does,” she said. “Of course the first thing his soulmate will ever say to him is no.”

“He was only upset about it for about a week before he went around asking all the local girls if they were his soulmate,” Stefan said. “He said he knew it wouldn’t work, that everyone who said no wasn’t really his soulmate, despite their first words, but that he would court the first girl who said yes, anyway, because he wanted someone spirited.” He laughed a little. “Damon was a very different person then.”

Caroline shrugged before lifting a hand to thread through her hair, elbow propped against the back of the bench just against Stefan’s arm so she could rest her chin in her palm. “I don’t know,” she said. “That still sounds like Damon.” She pursed her lips, then continued, “Though I doubt he’d actually mean it.”

“If he said it today?” Stefan asked. When Caroline raised an eyebrow, he said, “Probably not. Maybe use it to try to sleep with them, but otherwise no.”

After a moment of warm, comfortable silence, Caroline said, “Thanks.”

“For what?” Stefan asked. 

“You know,” Caroline said. She smiled at him crookedly, then used the hand that had been holding her chin to shove lightly against his shoulder. “Distracting me.”

Stefan lightly knocked into her knee with a knuckle. “No problem,” he said.

“No,” Caroline said. “It’s a big deal, talking about your words. So, thank you.”

He answered, “You’re welcome.”

**

When Caroline found him -- her turn this time, centuries and all the memories of a long life standing between them -- she said, “Hey,” and joined him on a familiar bench.

Stefan smiled and turned to face her. “So how’d it go?” he asked. 

“I wouldn’t change a thing,” said Caroline, shifting so Stefan had to tuck an arm around her. “It was life, and it was great.”

They both just sat in the comfortable silence for a few seconds before Stefan shifted to kiss her forehead. “I remember another time we sat here,” he said, knocking a hand against the back of the bench. When Caroline turned to look at the sound, she saw black ink near his elbow. She made a small “oh” sound, but didn’t pause to read the words.

Instead, she shifted her attention down to her arm where unfamiliar, stark black writing stood out against her pale skin. She read her words quickly, then again, more slowly. “How?” Caroline asked.

“Here, everyone has them,” Stefan said. He was watching her face, his eyes never drifting down to her forearm. He asked, “So, did you ever find your soulmate?”

Caroline looked back down at the words on her arm, old but familiar. She smiled, then shrugged, raising her head to meet Stefan’s stare directly. “Does it matter?”

He pulled her more snugly against his side. “Nah.”

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope folks enjoyed that! Let me know if I ought to add the Major Character Death tag after all, please! I don't want to trigger anyone.


End file.
